Would assume Luke steps into the Obi Wan role.

Vatican newspaper not impressed, liked Mad Max better (so did I)

The force means he doesn't have to do anything athletic. I mean Christopher Lee and Alec Guiness weren't so spry either. Just has to wave his hands around and swing the stick a few times. Darth Vader too.

Just found this too. Apparently Poe was supposed to die when they crashed.

http://www.blastr.com/2015-12-21/sta...y-supposed-die

Hey man, I named my cat Jade. You know how hard it was for me to tell her she doesn't exist now!

I'm waiting until the Pope speaks ex cathedra on the matter before I consider this canonical.

Thank Disney this didn't happen. The world needs more Oscar Isaac, how dare they consider killing him.

From what I hear his rendition of the Joker in the Batman video games is beyond awesome. Anyways surely his acting chops are solid enough for this series. They sure were the first time around, and I can't see him getting worse.

I'm one that has read several of the novels that are not canon anymore. I am actually happy that a lot of the EU is not canon anymore. It got to the point where I couldn't keep up with how many books they had. Plus they would have been very constrained if they counted it as canon.

this is what bothered me more than anything else probably

mediocre at best imo. quite disappointed. nothing original about it



also don't get my hopes up with some RAID actors without giving them some cool ish to do. idc if a scene had to be cut or whatever, don't blueballs me

I heard on the radio that even before the film was released, Disney had already earned 2billion from merchandise.

$2 billion in revenue on merchandise is believable, but that wouldn't mean they recouped half their investment. You'd have to take all the marketing and other costs out of the $2 billion first before you can know how much they earned.

But it doesn't really matter, they're going to make a **** load of money on this.

Think Rian Johnson is an intriguing choice to direct Episode 8, particularly as he's written the screenplay. Looper did creative, interesting things with the time travel movie so hopefully he'll bring some of that originality to the next Star Wars movie.

Earned as in profit doubtful. Sold at the retail level possible. Disney just gets a licensing fee they don't make the merch.

One additional point about the Ren battles at the end is that, in addition to being physically hurt, he literally minutes ago had murdered his father in cold blood. In light of the fact that the movie had already established that he has a huge problem controlling his emotions, I think it's safe to say that he was not in a frame of mind to have complete control over his Jedi powers.

I really liked a lot of the movie. As an overall experience, I think they did a great job.

I do think it felt rushed. It's like they jammed 2 movies into one because they felt they had to make a full reboot and not just a half. Could they have released a movie on just the first half alone? To some point where Han is back, Rey gets the light saber and the villian is han and leia's kid?
Maybe they should have shot the 2 movies at once and released them 6 months apart or something.

Still, it was great fun. And it wouldn't be Star Wars without clunky story telling and plot holes.

I loved it.

First off, it did not have the polished feel of the most recent trilogy, which I think was a good thing. I think of the light saber dual in Phantom Menace. It was cool, but highly choreographed between a martial art expert with no character development (Darth Maul) and the 2 trained Jedi's. The dual in The Force Awakens was much more raw. It was between a well developed villain, who was injured, and may or may not have the training that the villains have had in the other Star Wars movies, and 2 protagonists with little to no training. While we can debate whether or not that fight was too lopsided or not, it just felt right to me while watching it.

The death star thing was addressed well, with Han saying "So it's bigger," in a sarcastic tone. I think they were just establishing that they couldn't just fire one missile into an air duct to blow the whole thing up, it took a bit more.

Unlike the prequels, I felt like I was watching a Star Wars movie. It had some cutesy stuff for the kids, and a silly over the top monster (the cargo bay monster), but mostly it was spent in the development of these new characters, a potentially Shakesperean villain, and a whole lot of perfect comic relief.

I can't wait for episode VIII.

I'm not sure how you can criticise TPM for lack of character development while defending TFA. The clue is in the title - phantom - the whole narrative of the movie is that the protagonist villains are operating covertly and of not doing anything that might reveal themselves to the Jedi.

I think that was the one thing that worked really well in that movie - that Maul got so little screen time meant it felt he had the upper hand on the Jedi.

Plus, I felt a lot more emotionally invested in Qui Gon's death than Han's. I think they built that scene really well.

Take those parts out though and what's left really isn't great.

I thought TFA was decent. It felt like I was watching a Stars Wars movie and was much more in the vein of the OT rather than the prequels. Sure, it wasn't perfect but was about as good as you could expect it to be.

As the first instalment from Disney I can understand that priority no. 1 would be to steady the ship after the disastrous prequels and restore people's faith in the franchise. By staying faithful to the feel of the originals they give themselves a good foundation to work from and can be more original and push the boundaries going forward.

Imagine if they had tried to push the envelope right out of the gate and got it wrong. Everybody would have been like "WTF Disney. You should have just stayed faithful to the originals instead of trying to reinvent the wheel" then started making "They Kill Star Wars" avatars and planning strikes of future movies.

There were definitely a few things that made me roll my eyes, like the bigger Death Star. Also how conveniently and easily Han and Rey came into contact (that whole scene with the Rathtars etc. on Han's ship made me feel like I was watching Red Dwarf, lol).

Other disappointments for me include the first scene where Ren takes his mask off (made him seem far less menacing and took away a lot of the power of the scene where Han confronts him on the bridge, which would have a been a much better point for him to remove his mask for the first time).

Casting-wise, I thought Ren was badly cast and just seemed like moody emo kid once he took his mask off. Boyega came off as annoyingly overacting to me and the general of the First Order in that Nazi-esque scene was too young to take seriously. Previous movies had more senior actors in positions of power who came across as having more gravitas and authority as a result. This guy had barely started shaving and again seemed like a bit of a petulant emo kid rather than a credible leader of a menacing galactic organisation.

Despite all these gripes, it was an overall enjoyable experience. I thought Daisy Ridley was great. The look and feel of the worlds was excellent and I loved the touches like the recognisable spaceships etc. from previous films decaying in the landscape, as well as other nods to the OT which added something for fans of the originals without getting in the way of the experience for people who aren't familiar with them. The ending annoyed me at first but, on reflection, I think it was good.

It has def made me eager to re-watch the previous films. Though I am not sure if I can bring myself to sit through the prequels, so if anybody knows an alternative way to take in their story (like animated / abridged versions or w/e) please post it in here.

Would definitely watch TFA again and look forward to seeing future films and new story arcs.

You're very wrong about everything you say here.

Firstly, the casting for Ren was perfect! Because under the mask, he's a menacing powerful force. When he removes it, he becomes this emotionally damaged, young and immature ex-Jedi who's still having an internal battle between the light and the dark. I compare Adam Driver's performance to Tom Hiddleston as Loki wrt his father issues and his emotions and I think Adam Driver did a great job of that. So he looks like a nerd? So what?

Secondly, the casting for General Hux was intentional. JJ Abrams has stated that he wanted a young actor to have a sense of tragedy.

Thirdly, Boyega was not amazing, but he was certainly not bad. I didn't get any overacting vibes from him. His character is ******ed because of the way he was written (Screw the Universe, let's go save this girl I just met yesterday) but otherwise his acting was fine. If anything, increased emotional reactions are to be expected from a character like him because of what he's been through.

Just saw the movie a second time and I have to say some of the complaints from the thread might be based on what people remember of the movie instead of what actually happened. The main example I have in mind is the scene in Maz Kanata's place with all of the aliens. People complained about how it doesn't make sense that aliens would cluster with other aliens instead of clustering with their own kind. However when I saw the movie I noticed that most of the clusters involve aliens from the same species and the exceptions all make sense: 1) The musical band, 2) People gambling, 3) People gambling at another table, 4) People gambling at yet another table. Of course people gambling would be together in a cluster and need not be from the same species. For the musical band it also makes sense for some of them to be from different species.

Also, after rewatching it, I think the battle between Kylo and Rey doesn't seem as bad. And the Finn versus Kylo fight is a complete beat down. Fin gets a lucky strike but other than that, Kylo really destroys Fin.

Just saw it a second time and totally agree. I really liked it the first time and loved it on re-watch. A lot of the gripes don't really hold up on a second viewing. There is so much happening and a lot to digest. I moved it up to top 3 in series after second viewing with a big drop to 4th place.

Grunching this and thought I'd lay my thoughts out first and then see how they line up with others:

It sucked.

This was clearly a reboot, but the last 3 episodes weren't made so they just kind of combined them. This was a stupid idea. There are plenty of storylines to follow without just redoing Episode 4. (Don't say something like omg BGP loves mitoclorians after reading this next sentence, that's not what I'm saying.) I thought the plot for episodes 1-3 was good, but the execution was awful. For this the execution was decent but the plot was awful.

Kylo was horribly miscast, and the character himself was just poorly done. As soon as he removes his mask he's no longer menacing at all. Also because he's already been bitched slapped by the new emperor (more on that nonsense later) and the way too young redhead admiral or whatever, he just doesn't come off as that menacing. Murdering the village at the beginning isn't enough. He needed his mask to be kept on the entire movie and to have that voice the entire movie.

The end of this was just not dramatic at all. This is the 4th death star we've seen blown up. Episode 4, Episode 7, Star Trek Into Darkness, and now this. Come on Abrams... you can't just make **** bigger and black and say it's a good villain.

Much like Star Trek Into Darkness this movie is one big magic show. Watch the lightsabers and explosions while the plot moves along in ways that make absolutely no sense at all.


So did nothing from Episode 4-6 matter? It seems like we're still in the exact same spot. Empire still the dominant force and making death stars, rebels still outgunned. They are all seriously in the same spot. There's an emperor and we are given no explanation about him. If it's so easy to be building world destroying devices, then why doesn't the Republic commit to killing the Empire remnants? I'm assuming the Republic and the Resistance aren't the same, because otherwise the resistance would be more powerful than the first order.


And now I'm going to be a nit (undoubtedly some people will say I already have been, but they're probably just nitting up over my expecting a reasonably good movie)


Finn was stupid. What is he going to do now?

Rey too powerful, she's han solo + Luke? Where's the room for anyone else? I hope Finn isn't going to be forced into the next episode (I know he will).

One stormtrooper always guarding key characters.

So the Republic just stands by as Empire 2.0 blows them up? Maybe help the resistance or something.

R2D2 stuff

Do we really need the Nazi stuff?

I didn't even realize when the deathstar got blown up, that's how anticlimatic it was.

At the end of the deathstar blowing up there's the falcon and 3 ships flying away, so I hope there's no more space battles planned for the future.

The biggest problem I see is that the good guys have a jedi master (luke) and the best novice jedi the series has ever seen (Rey) and the bad guys have a hologram who just kind of stumbled into this movie and Han's kid, who seems to be only good at killing unarmed villagers and random office equipment.

So the next movie should be about five minutes. They climb into the Falcon, go get Han Jr. and kill him. Game over.

The lightsaber is going to revolutionize the logging industry

When you re-watch ROTJ after watching the Prequels and the other canon. You realized how ludicrous it is that Luke beat Vader. Yoda barely trained Luke and now he is a "master". Vader should have crushed him.